I was 12 when President Kennedy was killed. I was in a study hall at St Mary School when we were told. The study hall was on the auditorium stage, which was the only space available due to overcrowding by all us baby boomer kids. The nuns were all crying and they sent us home early. I saved the Gazette from that day (it was an evening paper then) and I still have it to this day.

I probably should have put Oswald's note in quotes and with attribution. He left the note below for his wife just before his failed attempt to assassinate General Walker in April of 1963.

"This is the key to the mailbox which is located in the main post office in the city on Ervay Street. This is the same street where the drugstore, in which you always waited is located. You will find the mailbox in the post office which is located 4 blocks from the drugstore on that street. I paid for the box last month so don't worry about it.

Send the information as to what has happened to me to the Embassy and include newspaper clippings (should there be anything about me in the newspapers). I believe that the Embassy will come quickly to your assistance upon learning everything.

I paid the house rent on the second so don't worry about it.

Recently I also paid for water and gas. The money from work will possibly be coming. The money will be sent to our post office box. Go to the bank and cash the check.

You can either throw out or give my clothing etc. away Do not keep these. However I prefer you hold on to my personal papers (military, civil etc.)

Certain of my documents are in the small blue valise.

The address book can be found on my table in the study should you need same.

We have friends here. The Red Cross also will help you. (Red Cross in English).

I left you as much money as I could, $60 on the second of the month. You and the baby (apparently) can live for another two months using $10 per week.

If I am alive and taken prisoner, the city jail is located at the end of the bridge though which we always passed on going to the city (right in the beginning of the city after crossing the bridge)."

ccra...., the Vietnam War would have played out much the way it did had Kennedy lived. He was very anti-communist. The claims to the contrary are only for the purpose of implicating the government in a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Death becomes him.

I would only add that he would have employed Vietnamization much sooner and more effectively.

jaymen, I agree, the religion of conspiracy, especially in the JFK assassination, is proof positive that the American mentality has been severely damaged. Oswald did it, and he did it all by his lonesome. All the conspiracy stuff is evidence that a lot of people only want to be entertained, and not informed.

Oswald's note to his wife was deleted.

COMPLIMENTS & GRATITUDE to most people posting comments! I have been reading, as always, the COMMENTS posted on my WE THE PEOPLE blog. It is very satisfying & fulfilling that in general, MOST of the comments are MEANINGFUL, on topic and honest. THANK YOU! I dare to HOPE that ALL of the comments in the future we have this level of rational, appropriate and civil quality. I have the audacity of hope in spite of BAD EXPERIENCES in the past and a couple comments on this blog post. Here we go... John W. Eyster

I remember being a student in a classroom when it was announced that President Kennedy was shot. Later the school broadcast over the public address system Walter Cronkite’s announcement President Kennedy was dead. We were sent home early and didn’t go back to school until after the funeral. I remember my family having a very long Thanksgiving weekend with regular programmed television being replaced with news programs and some television just playing music with still pictures of President Kennedy. Our family seemed to bind together over the week we spent together discussing the implications of the change of Presidency and what the future may bring. In 1969 I went to Vietnam as a Marine and still wonder if we would have been involved to the extent we were in that country had President Kennedy not been assassinated.

C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley also died 47 years ago today.

I was in Art Fluck's math class at Lincoln Junior High School in Beloit. I lived across the alley on 10th street and ran home for lunch to watch things on television. A very sad period of American history. He initiated a great deal during his short time in office, including the 1964 Civil Rights legislation pushed through by LBJ.

Today's culture has a completely different worldview than the Kennedy days! Now it's more like "Ask what your country can do for you and not what you can do for your country". The generations today haven't earned freedom, we've inherited them, therefore, we take them for granted and have no clue what it means or how to defend it anymore.

Really??!!! He didn't make it huh?